On Making Do

If Spring would come perhaps I would find myself standing, arms spread wide, in a field of flowers.  If Spring were here, perhaps the taste of nectar on my lips would yield to a joyous smile.  If Spring were here perhaps I woucl shed this heavy coat and let the sun soak into my skin. If and if and if, a litany that continues to reverberate through the cold afternoon and settle on my tongue making dinner quite unpalatable.

Why is it that winter has left me to this boggy state of mind?  I feel drugged and listless, as if my existence is a drag on the universe.  The day simply to hard to stumble through.  The press of the phone and the email alerts craving my attention are like anchors on my soul.  I have a profound and overwhelming need to dig my toes into freshly genned up mud after a light spring rain. 

I can almost smell the freedom of the next season.  It is as tantalizingly clear to my senses as that of a lover breathing on my neck.  Yet I stand alone in the room and see only the early greying of the day and the loss of light.  I recoil from this much as a teenager would from the hands of an octagenarian fumbling at their thigh. 

Again I test out my litany of if statements only to realize that Spring will not come sooner with the chanting of my wishes.  I must make my peace with the season that I live in.  I gather the grey day to me and pick at it.  Slowly I find threads that shimmer here and there, piecing and weaving together a fabric that is at once both beautiful and warm.  It is intangible, but credible enough for me to wrap myself in it and continue through the day and into the evening knowing that I can be comfortable with winter - at least long enough to bide my time til Spring.

On Coffee, Mornings and the Need for Speed

Sometimes in the cool blush of morning I find myself unwilling to surrender the bliss of sleep.  Even after I have struggled from the cocoon of my duvet and felt the rough pull of the carpet on my feet my mind lingers regretting its lost comfort.  This in itself is not unusual, especially with the winter blues hanging overhead - the darkness of day followed by the darkness of night that marks our winter season here in the midwest.  Everyday begins and ends in darkness, not a bright way to live, but at least its shadows are short lived and I am lucky enough to have an office with a wall of windows.  In this way I am asured that daylight, however brief has not left me.  It is just more fleeting.  Nevertheless, I find that I have changed this season.

I have of late developed a staggeringly different way of approaching the day.  Gone is the final grunt of acceptance which is followed by the abrupt departure from the covers and a head long dash into the day.  Instead, I find I am lingering.  I am allowing myself a cup of coffee (sometimes two) at the house.  I linger over the book from the night before, pressing the envelope on the time I have to the point where I end up racing out the door to make my earliest appointment.  Or on more than one occasion end up taking the planned conference call from home as I am too late to make it to the office.  It is as if time is just drifting around me - or rather I am drifting through time. 

There are moments when I feel ruffled by this change, but for the most part it seems more like I am floating along with the rest of the flotsam and jetsom in my life, just bobbing in the waves as they take me the next port of call.  Did I mention that I have indeed many ports of call?  I travel.  I travel a lot.  I just returned from journey that took me from Florida, to Tennessee and back home arriving around 11:30 pm - only to leave the following morning in time to hit the highway at top speed (roughly within the limits of the law) for meetings in Chicago.  I leave again after only 5 days on the ground for a trip that will take me to South Carolina and three different cities there, back home for two days, then off to Missouri, back into Illinois, home for a brief blip then off to DC and into Montana to round out the month.  I am indeed just bobbing in the current of my life.  And I think somewhere along the way - as this travel whirlwind has increased its pace, I have somehow decreased my internal pace - creating this oddly almost balanced ecosystem in which I exist. 

I wonder sometimes, how much longer can I manage the pace - and then I wonder if I could manage without it? 

We have learned to live moving constantly.  We have created devices that allow us to communicate in nano-seconds, to be as close to literally as possible in multiple places as once.  Would we know how to go back to something simpler?  Are we fundamentally capabable of only small capsules of time spent suspended?  Like my morning cups of coffee over the books I am scrambling to finish.  Are these leisure moments which I scrum into my calendar really all I can handle?  Would a week of open time crush me?  Would I enjoy dropping down the pace? 

When they say that retirement killed someone, is this what they mean?  That the blood pressure dropped so low that they just ceased to be?  Somehow that actually makes sense to me.  And at the same time, it is over-poweringly sad to believe it could be true.

Just thinking out loud - How about you?

Filling the Vase

Its been a while since I have spun a bit of poetry directly onto the page - Well - here goes - Edit free -from my fingers to your eyes - Happy Monday to you all - Rence

Filling the Vase

Fractures line the curves of the vase
Like tiny veins
Or patterns etched by ancient ivy shoots
Now long gone
Their life lines leaving indelible images
On the fragile china

At first it appears the vessel
may prove to weak to fulfill its promised
function
To aged and thin to succor the blooms

It seems such a tragedy
For this icon of beauty and strength
to be relegated to only the lighted cabinet
Where it will be viewed but never touched
Seen but never filled

But as my hands reverently follow its curves
I find myself peering within
only to discover the veining is superficial
Its interior is as smooth as the day it was created
No fissures or cracks mar its perfect finish

With relish I fill the vessel
Snip each bloom and arrange it within the
shelter of this perfectly hollowed shell
Their fragrance is intoxicating

Standing back
I can see now that the vase is perfect as it is
That time has made it only more beautiful
The vine-like pattern highlights its grace
I cannot imagine it being empty again

Taking the Hit -

Sometimes it is very, very hard to take what is called by some, "the high road."  I wonder at how often I am asked to do this.  Why is it that people seem to think it is just fine to cozy on in to my space and tell me all about how incredibly awful someone else's behaviour has been and then ask me to help them help that person by bravely offering myself as the road on which they can walk to higher plane of good behavior?

Hmmmmmmmmm?  Do I just exude a scent or attitude that says come to me and I will try to make the world full of harmony and balance?  Or is it that I appear to be laying in the roadway anyway - so all they want to do is be polite and ask if it is fine with me before they drive the truck along my spine?  I expect is not the latter because as kind as I can be when it comes to fixing things - I am Irish - and I do have a temper.

I am more than willing to admit to my frailties and that is certainly one of them.  But on the positive side, I can get over most things, figure out what will make a situation work out for the good of most if not all with a focus on the long-term benefits and move in that direction (even if it does mean I have to deal with a few treadmarks to get there).  If I can see the benefits to the whole - I can handle what it takes to get there (most of the time). 

But I have to admit, I generally like to know that taking the hit comes along with the value of knowing that the person or persons I am taking the hit for actually see the value in what I am doing. - That it is recognized and that we both see exactly what the situation is.  I am truly not that keen on taking one for the team if the lesson is not being learned.  What is the point in that?  It will probably only lead to someone having to repeat the process in the future, whether that is me or not is irrelevant - the fact is - if people don't understand the damage they are doing - then they just keep doing it.  Of course there is no guaranty that in being shown the damage they are causing that they won't repeat the offense.  But you can at least be assured that if you do come up with a repeat offender - that the ignorance alibi will hold zero water in anyone's eyes - and you can correct the problem a new way.  This time with the hit delivered to the perpetrator  - who as a repeat offender - quite rightly deserves the treadmarks over anyone else on the team.

So today- I pretty much pulled my IRISH out.  I did tell the person who made the request that I bridge the gap in the road that if they gave me to the end of the week it was likely that I would get past the anger and be able to comply with the request. - But as things stood they would be far better off finding someone who would be capable of not rolling to the right and letting the vehicle (person) take the swan dive at just the precise moment when it would do the most damage.  I was apparently not in the mood to be "fixing" it - especially not on a slippery slope that appeared to be headed for the repeat offender's line.

So instead I am taking my frustration's out here - wishing that people would check in with their integrity and their common sense before they leap into action - and before their friends end up being asked to take a hit to help them out of a situation they could easily have avoided. 

The problem is - we all make mistakes - and we all need to know that our friends will be there for us when we do.  So it is hard to hang on to my righteous indignation when in the end, even though this particular action I am being asked to rectify is something I would never do, I know lurking around in my head there is a mistake waiting to happen that someone will view just as darkly as I view this one - and I am going to want them to forgive me my foibles and step up to the plate for me. 

So I guess this means it isn't really going to take me til the end of the week then is it?  And I guess I have my answer about why people seem to end up in my space asking me if I will be there again and again.  Either because I am a total schmuck and I buy it everytime - or because I do believe in my friends and my team - and I believe when I need it - they will be there for me.   I just hope I don't have to ask them anytime soon - afterall - getting all Irish on them isn't all that pretty  - at least not when its used with this definition in mind.

Past and Present: Dark and Light

The past crawls along underneath your skin and rises occasionally with a need to be scratched.  I suppose there are specific triggers.  Certain dates in the year that are linked to past events, times that used to be important - that somehow still seem like they should be - and it itches when they are not.  Life is a cycle of memories and dreams, both capable of driving us forward and pulling us backward.

Sometimes it seems that these conspire to fall at the same time, experiences that move in both directions.  So I find myself caught between a memory that sprang from angst and a memory that seems almost unreal in the largeness of its beauty.  I have to admit that I have a strong need to scratch both, though I can't seem to understand why. 

I want to find a way to scratch until the memory of the angst is scrubbed off.  Yet I know that will never happen.  It is a part of who I am  - as are all our lessons along the way of life.  As with any loss or death, its landmark dates will give rise to those memories.  They fade with time, but the itch of their existence never fully goes away.  I know this and to some extent I welcome it.  It means I am alive.  More than that it means I have not lost track of who I am.  I am not hiding from what I feel.  And if that is true, then it means that the itch inspired by the beautiful memory, the one that is rather surreal in its own way, may just be real enough to let bloom in my mind.

Yet I have to admit I will be happy to clear February, it is not a favored month.  I will be even happier to clear April, and after that October.  These are the three months of the year that are hardest to smooth through.  Do you know what months you stumble over?  Do you know why?  And have you found any new memories within those months that give you reasons to think about enjoying them again?  So far I have found a help with one month - the youngest of the pains being carried has an offset.  I wonder if it the other months have any hope?

If life is about balance - than this must be a part of it.  Dark with the light.  I pray that we all find more of the light.

What's Love Got to Do With It?

So - What's love got to do with it? What do we really mean when we use this word? I can remember a time, not so long ago - yet in someways a life time ago - when I believed in the magic of this word without reservation. 

Of course that was before the revelation that came into the magic Kingdom of Not, in which I had invested myself - the urgent proclamation that instantly corrected this definition for me.  It became brutally and bluntly clear that the meaning of this word is quite different for a man than it is for a woman.  Of course, I held in my memory examples of the Kingdom's old definition, where this expression meant a bond where one would care for another above themselves, make decisions based on how they would affect the other - you get the idea - the antiquated ideal of partnership that equated to the definition of love - before the proclamation in the Kingdom of Not.  This proclamation that simply redefined love as a word used between the sexes as an excuse to get into bed.

It became clear that trust could be placed in the love between parent and child and when one is truly lucky between friends and family members where that bond is strong enough to last and hold its own.  Perhaps it is a part of our society's changing times - not a good change I fear.  But now it seems that people see the world as centered around themselves and only break this mold at the core of family, and those extended friends that become family.  Somehow this just doesn't extend to lovers, no matter that this intimacy moves beyond so many barriers, the phrase "I Love You" has become equal to "I Love Having Sex With You."  And when this passion ebbs, so then the "love" and the relationship - until the couples part. 

It is a harsh world to live in.  Knowing that your perspective is likely to be so different from your partner's.  It is harsh to lie there wondering if the words they give you have meaning beyond the physical pleasure of the moment - or even the chance to extend that pleasure to the next.  The philosopher's have spoken so often of the boundaries that we have with langage.  Our inability to truly know another, and hence the knowledge that we are always alone.  It is this I think that drives us to find others to be with.   Yet it is also what prevents us from understanding if we have found that person to be with.  Especially in the fabric of the world we live in today - where gratification has paved the way to the loose use of a word that is meant to express the most deep and intricate of emotions. 

It is so much easier to recognize the face of love when it is not obscured by passion.  Yet passion is such an essential part of being a couple that one can become consumed with doubt when "LOVE" is placed into the equation.  I asked someone recently how they knew they loved someone.  At first they looked like a deer caught in the headlights, or someone faced with a test that they had no means of passing.  Finally, the answer came, "I just know."  It was said with eyes clear and open and with a steady full voice, no whispers and no doubts, not in the heat of passion and not with concern that the object of their passionate affection might leave.  And I believed them.  For the first time since the urgent declaration was issued, I found myself believing in a present tense couple operating on that antiquated definition of love. 

I wonder then, when will the Kingdom of Not issue a new proclamation, that redefines this word yet again and paves the way for trust, comfort and belief ? Soon I hope - very soon - I think it will make for a much happier world - one I would really like my children to experience as they expand past family to find their own places, homes and hearths

What's Love Got to Do With It? - Just about everything in the end - It's all about your perspective - and that of the person you are with - Here's to the chance that these might be close to the same view afterall.

Hello Again - anybody out there?

Writer's W(h)ine

Seems like only yesterday I was simply putting down the chatter in my head on this white space - and yet somehow in between now and then Participles and Portents intervened.

I have to admit I never thought I would be able to say - I have written a book.   Well now I can actually say it - and it is not - I have an idea for one- or I started it and it is gathering dust in a drawer somewhere - or lost in a suitcase in the back of a closet.  I actually completed it. 

I have no idea if it was fun for you to read or not - But I can tell you it was a blast to write - I almost miss it now - almost - the thrill of completion still trumps the litttle bit of desire to still be writing it.

But I do understand why people never finish - and why sometimes they never start -

If writing has ever been a dream - and I think it has for just about anyone who truly enjoys reading-

Than starting is that big blank slate between you and the dream.  As long as you never touch it, the dream remains pristine.  But as soon as you put ink on the page, its like a painter touching virgin canvas - no effort can really erase what you have done.  Sure you can throw the page away - or erase it from your computer - but in your mind you will know that you did not "create" what you set out to - amd the dream becomes tainted. Ah.............fear - it ain't pretty.

And if you do get past the opening stroke then the inner editor is sitting there - waiting to pounce.  You may get lucky and spend a few glorious weeks putting pages out - but sooner or later the desire to read what you have written will sneak up on you - and then - like a cobra the editor strikes - and suddenly you realize - you can't write.  As you read you begin to edit everything - and you get mired in making changes - the project lags - and eventually stalls as you give up on making it read as you envision it.

(Here is the one little thing I did learn.  Do not read your work until you finish it.  You can go back and nip and tuck if you remember something that is not aligned with where the book takes you - but don't give in to the urge to edit as you go.  I made it through this one - it is done. DONE.  And I am editing it now- and surprisingly - though I have quite a few edits - I have not thrown it in the trash - because I have found the parts that are what I envisioned.  And I can see how to make the rest get there through those pieces. )

Last challenge to actually ever being done- Is the urge to just keep writing the book.  The characters are my friends now.  The places have become parts of what I know of as home.  I am comfortable in those spaces, and in those "skins".  I miss my new friends.  It is hard to let them go.  And I can see why some authors spend years writing a book and why sometimes we start and never finish - because we just don't want to let go. 

I think this is perhaps the hardest part of the challenge - because I am still connected to the people in the book.  And much like pets, your characters become people too.

So I guess that's it,  I am a recovering author now.  I wonder if I can go to a support group for that?